Rep. John Dingell has served in Congress for 55 years, and for 22 years prior to that, his father occupied the same House seat.

He has been one of the most powerful Democratic House members of this generation, serving as ranking Democrat and then chairing the Energy and Commerce committee until unseated by Henry Waxman last year.

He is also apparently in deep, deep electoral trouble:

A new independent poll has the dean of the U.S. House, Rep. John Dingell, trailing his Republican opponent, Rob Steele, by 4 percentage points.

The automated phone survey of 300 people in the 15th Congressional District showed Steele getting 43.8% of the vote. Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat and the longest-serving member of Congress, got 39.5%. About 11% were undecided. The gap is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points. The poll was conducted Monday.

Dingell's campaign said the survey - conducted by the Rossman Group of Lansing and Team TelCom - is a Republican front and is contradicted by other polls in recent weeks.

Team TelCom's president Gary Reed has Republican ties, but Kelly Rossman-McKinney, CEO of the Rossman Group, has Democratic roots.

A robo-survey is not the most reliable polling method and it has a very high error margin at 5.6%. But in a tidal wave election, even seats like Dingell's are up for grabs if the GOP challenger plays his cards right. 

The disgust in places like the near-suburbs of Detroit where Dingell's seat is located is so intense that few Democrats are safe this election. Results will vary from district to district but if even a Democrat like Dingell is vulnerable, an incumbent takes his seat for granted at his own peril.